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Open Enrollment Closeout Process

The open enrollment closeout is a step of the OE process that Employee Navigator has automated for you. This step is essential in creating accurate and timely enrollment records. Open enrollment closeout will be automatically scheduled on the OE effective date or the Administration Ends date (whichever is later). The closeout process job performs 2 tasks in the background:

Takes existing enrollment records and ends them according to the end date of the plan

Makes elections made during Open Enrollment reflect as the new current enrollments for employees

Update Closeout

Because Closeout is an automated process, it will not be common that a user needs to visit or update the Closeout date, however, in some cases, you have a few options.

You will notice that the user who initiated the OE session has been locked in as the user who will receive OE Closeout Updates. OE Closeout Updates and notifications include:

Open Enrollment Closed - this e-mail notifies the user that the session has finished the closeout process and associated jobs on the scheduled date

Open Enrollment Not Closed - this e-mail notifies the user that the closeout failed. An open enrollment closeout might fail if the session was not Closeout Ready

You have the option to add additional users to receive OE Closeout notifications. This might be another Broker administrator for the company or even the HR User. Additional contacts should be separated using a comma.

You can use the "Scheduled to close on" field to extend the closeout date to a future date should you feel you need additional enrollment or admin time.

If the session is Closeout Ready and all enrollment/admin dates have expired, there is an option to close "Now".

Warning: It is not recommended that OE be closed any earlier than the OE Effective Date

If you are scheduling the closeout for "Now", this may take a few minutes and you will receive a system generated email once your OE Session has completed the closeout process.

Note:If any Ending Plans are set to Passive Enroll, the closeout process will take care of this action automatically

Note: As of now, HR users do not have access to closeout OE sessions "Now". OE sessions must be closed out by agency users.

Note: If the EE is not eligible for the designated replacement plan (passive enroll option on ending plans tab), the EE's coverage will be dropped effective the last day of the ending plan, and the EE will not be enrolled in the replacement plan for the upcoming plan year.

Recommendations

We recommend scheduling the Closeout to run on the Open Enrollment Effective Date. For example, if the new plans are effective 10/1, the OE can be scheduled to close on 10/1 at 12:00amEST.

Caution for Early Closeout

If OE is closed prior to the OE plan effective date, there is no mechanism for the new hire to enroll in the plans that are effective in the future.

If the group has new hires coming on board who are effective in the new plan year and the open enrollment has been closed out, those new hires will not be able to see the future effective plans until that date occurs.

Example: New hire effective 10/1 based on their hire date. Today's date is 9/15 and Open Enrollment has been closed out. New Hire will not be able to see the future plans until 10/1

Another issue occurs if an employee were to have a life event that occurs prior to the new plan effective date. Since the closeout process ended existing enrollment, the life event being processed will only update the "current" plan which is future dated. There will be no way to update the coverage that was ended early as a result of the early closeout. This means that coverage must be updated manually with carriers and if you are using EN for ACA reporting you will also have to adjust ended plans with the historical import tool in order to ensure accurate reporting.

Carrier Billing Summary Reports

Did you know that most carriers will give a 60 day retroactive credit if it is found that they are being overcharged or there are incorrect costs. When working with groups that are going through OE, a good suggestion would be to run a Carrier Billing Summary report within the first month after OE has closed, so you can capture any discrepancies upfront before it is too late! Check out our article onCarrier Billing Reports

Troubleshooting

Why can't I close my Open Enrollment session? There are a few reasons why your Open Enrollment closeout "Now" option may be disabled or that you received an Open Enrollment Not Closed notification. Here are a few of the most common things to check:

Is your OE session "Closeout Ready"? An indicator and checklist has been added to the OE session. Required fields include:

Closeout date is set

Ending Plans have been mapped

If integrated with one of our Payroll Partners, Send Deductions date and Payroll Deduction codes are completed

Has the Enrollment End and Administration End expired? Closeout cannot be closed out until these 2 effective dates have passed